DII Regionals

Yep coach, the idea of increased travel is not in keeping with D2 principles, and it also challenges budgets.

optional wrote:

Everyone arguing for the West...what are you basing it on? They chose not to travel. They chose not to play the game. They chose to gamble on being top-3 in their region and hoping someone else would pony-up and play the game for them.

The two teams that missed out on the opportunity to go to NCAA based on SFU's griak blunder were Alaska Anchorage and Academy of Art- who both participated in the Lewis Conference Crossover and beat quite a few teams who ended up qualifying for NCAA...

Looks to me that they did "play the game" and it would have benefitted them had SFU not been ahead of them at regionals. What could they have done other than maybe pay for SFU to come with them to compete and win back the losses? If anything this kind of circumstance has so much of an effect on qualifying it seems to me that teams from the West may choose not to play the system at all. This seemed to have benefitted teams from the South Central, who barely left their region at all. Rogers state had some good results and these effectively pushed alll those South Central teams in.

This system is flawed, there is no other way around it. The criteria having 1v1 wins meaning the most has the potential to ruin the integrity of the sport. Teams doing bad during a race will choose to completely drop out mid race, because having an off day and losing to teams that peaked too early could screw you from the start, unless your program has the time and money to go travel and collect those wins back

Amazing that 1 invite could have such an effect.

D2 guys wrote:

Amazing that 1 invite could have such an effect.

Really one teams performance at 1 invite...

I think the main problem with the system this year is there doesn't seem to be a way to "bump" teams in, only ways to bump teams out that should otherwise qualify.

Problem solving wrote:

D2 guys wrote:

Amazing that 1 invite could have such an effect.

Really one teams performance at 1 invite...

I think the main problem with the system this year is there doesn't seem to be a way to "bump" teams in, only ways to bump teams out that should otherwise qualify.

So a less worthy team should bump a more worthy team (or teams) so that the more worthy teams in its region that it beat get in. Sounds kind of subjective. It will be very difficult to design a quantitative system to pick the teams that one thinks should get to Nationals.

I also didn’t know that D2 promoted a model of regionalzation, which would be at odds with basing national bids on between region competition.

D2 guys wrote:

Problem solving wrote:

Really one teams performance at 1 invite...

I think the main problem with the system this year is there doesn't seem to be a way to "bump" teams in, only ways to bump teams out that should otherwise qualify.

So a less worthy team should bump a more worthy team (or teams) so that the more worthy teams in its region that it beat get in. Sounds kind of subjective. It will be very difficult to design a quantitative system to pick the teams that one thinks should get to Nationals.

I also didn’t know that D2 promoted a model of regionalzation, which would be at odds with basing national bids on between region competition.

More of what I was thinking was like in D1, where a team placing lower at the regional meet but performing well throughout the year may push teams ahead of it in. Not sure exactly how this should work, but I think the possibility of this happening would help prevent situations like this year where Simon Fraser's poor performance at a mid-season meet (which IMO should not be prioritized) and then performing well at Regionals impacts 3 other teams like this (and themselves).

Then that effectively negates the idea of prioritizing inter-regional competition during the seasons. It would be so much easier to take two autos, then award bids to regions based on the top-16 at Nationals from the prior year. If your region can’t produce a top 16 finish, then you are a two team region.

We have been told this is a 2-year deal by the committee but maybe there will be some changes allowed. I encourage all those coaches who have a valid concern with the current system to email your USTFCCCA executive committee rep and voice them. There is the small chance this system can be tweaked for next year. If enough school presidents/AD's voice enough justifiable frustration, maybe this could be changed or completely removed for next year. The big concerns appears to be (correct me if I am wrong):

- Inter-regional competitions require extra expenses and go against the stated NCAA Div II strategic plan

- If a team has a slight off-day at an inter-regional competition but runs great at regionals, it can directly hurt the rest of the region (west region this year)

- Figuring out who is in and who is out should be easier

- Anything else?

Does anyone think the system is fine as is and the West region is just complaining for no good cause?

The system will job a region any time there is a regional result that is Simon Fraser-like. What I find interesting is that this system was put in place to change perhaps 2-3 at-large bids in their regional allocation. The result of using the new system was perhaps less fair than using the old.

2017 At-Large teams under old qualifying criteria vs. using the new system

East - Stonehill, American Int, Merrimack (3) - no change

Atl - Shipp, Edinboro, IUP (3) - no change

South - Lee, Bama-Huntsville, St. Leo (3) - no change

SEast - Mt Olive, Queens, Augusta (3) - no change

South Central - Adams, Mines, Western, West TX A&M, CSU-Pueblo, Dallas Bab (6) - add Rogers

Central - Augie, Missouri Southern, Central Missouri, MN Duluth (4) - add Sioux Falls

MidWest - Grand Valley, Southern Indy, Lewis, Walsh (4) - add Bellarmine

West - Chico, Cal Baptist, Western Ore, Simon Fraser, Alaska Anchorage, Academy (6) - subtract Simon Fraser, Alaska Anchorage, Academy

There were teams left out that deserved to run the in the National Meet. But one could argue that at least 2 of the 3 teams that were added (say Rogers and Bellarmine) also deserve to run. The problem is that the teams from regions that have more than three worthy teams don't have enough competition with one another to apply a quantitative method for decision making for all. Obviously, there are teams on the roster of autos that are less worthy of participation, but only having 2 autos per region seems to be off the table. And if I was a coach and saw how the procedure worked this go around, I would definitely not be for expanding the menu to which it is applied to 16 teams.

Problem solving wrote:

D2 guys wrote:

Amazing that 1 invite could have such an effect.

Really one teams performance at 1 invite...

Even more amazing, look at the scores from the West Regional...

1) 55 Chico State

2) 84 Cal Baptist

3) 121 Western Oregon

4) 121 Simon Frasier

Simon Frasier 4th after the tie score gets broken. Not sure if Western Oregon had been 4th if they would have had the quality wins (or lack of head to head losses anyway) to push in Anchorage and Arts, as W-O didn't race outside the region at all.

What I've talked to our former regional rep about is modifying the old system, but his quote to me is that my idea was "too confusing". And then we get the plan that went into place this year...

I understand the idea that you want a system that has the best chance to qualify the 32 best teams. But there is always grey area around the bubble. That's not unique to DII XC, the Men's DI basketball tournament certainly does not have the best 68 teams competing. Every year there is a team that all the rankings put in the high 30's to mid 40's that ends up in the NIT. So with a goal to avoid having any teams that are legit contenders for say a Top 10 finish being left out, that's the way the formula should be structured.

The former system had the issue that if a region was generally weak, but had 1 strong team, that region would earn another spot for next year that was going to go to a weaker team. What I suggested, to avoid that, was to eliminate each region's top finishing team from the results, then taking the remaining Top 8 teams and awarding their regions an extra spot. Under my system regions that are deeper would earn the at-large spots, which seems like it would address the issue well, and regions that only have 1 good team would get the minimum automatic bids. The downside of my system is it is based on last year's results. But since the deeper regions tend to be so every year, that seems like a minor consideration.

My concept puts teams in a position to know what they need to accomplish on Regionals day, as opposed to leaving it to the formula if you're outside the Top 3 in your region.

Can you imagine if the South Central region had played out differently and a team in a similar position as Simon Frasier had finished 4th? 4th-12th in that region was only 101 points (and 43 seconds/man difference). What if Metro State or UC Colorado Springs finishes 4th in that region and they have losses to other 4th place teams or are lacking direct competition against other 4th place teams?

I know, what if what if what if... My point is I think the new qualifying system is going to tend to lead to more issues like this going forward.

d2xccoach, using your proposal, the 8 bids for this year would have gone to the West (3), SCentral (3) Midwest (1) and Central (1). Using the old formula, the bids would have been SCentral (3), West (3), Central (1) and Midwest (1). For the 2016 meet, your approach would have produced SCentral (2), West (3), Atl (1) and Midwest (2). The actual additional bids for 2016 went as follows: SCentral (2), West (2), Atl (1), Central (1) and Midwest (1).

If you take the total top 16 place finishes for the past 3 years, here are the numbers: Atl-4, Central-8, Midwest-11, SCentral-11 and West-14. The South, Southeast and East do not break the top half of the field. This is representative of regional strength. It's pretty clear that you have four relatively strong regions, one OK region and 3 weak regions. Given these data, it is pretty clear the at-large bids awarded (giving 4 to the SCentral, 2 to the Central, 2 to the Midwest and none to the West) is not reflective of regional strength. And I am not sure an adequate solution can be had as long as the three auto-bid system remains in place.

d2xccoach wrote:

What I've talked to our former regional rep about is modifying the old system, but his quote to me is that my idea was "too confusing". And then we get the plan that went into place this year...

I understand the idea that you want a system that has the best chance to qualify the 32 best teams. But there is always grey area around the bubble. That's not unique to DII XC, the Men's DI basketball tournament certainly does not have the best 68 teams competing.

I appreciate the discuss on this thread. I just want to point out that nobody up to this point has said they want the best 32 teams to nationals. If that was the case, we would be pushing for no autos or just 1 auto, as to take the much less competitive regions out of the mix, except for their top teams.

Will be interesting to see what comes from all of this. I do feel bad for those West coast teams but also feel that the top 7 from the South Central are legit as well.

Given that the best teams don't make the NCAA roundball tourney, why would we expect D2 XC to be better. And short of lining up more than 32 of the best teams on a course somewhere (several courses probably have an adequate start line), we cannot determine apriori which 32 teams would be the best. And the best 32 teams may not be the best 32 team performances at Regionals. Unless there is a willingness to claw back one auto bid from each region (in reality, take a bid from the weaker 2-3 regions), the issue is one of plus/minus a team bid each year in each of the four stronger regions. And I would say it is pretty clear that the new system failed right out of the gate.

When I used to set up the D2 Prediction Contest (which I'm planning to bring back btw), I used to try comparing regional strength based on early season meets. I had some down time on a business trip and figured I would use that strategy to look at the issue of who should have qualified. It's a lot easier to do it mathematically now with the ability to scrape results from TFRRS, but the data comparing regions is still limited. Without getting too technical, I mathematically compared teams that raced Griak, Paul Short, Lewis Crossover, Chile Pepper, Furman and Pre-Nats (large sample size to compare Griak, Short and CP), to gauge how fast each regional course was and combined the regions to make a computer ranking.

If I were to only use this system to award the 8 at-large bids, they would have gone:

West - 4

Midwest - 3

South Central - 1

If I drop it to 2 autos per region and make it 16 at-large bids, the west would pick up 2 at larges for 9 total qualifiers, the south central 1 for 5 total qualifiers and the East, South and Atlantic would have lost their 3rd qualifier.

For comparison, my computer rankings put Cal St San Marcos (9th in West) ahead of CSU-Pueblo (5th in South Central). There shouldn't be any bias because it was all math based, and my bias would be towards the South Central anyway.

Has anyone looked at if the push system would have solved this? Just glancing, it seems that Anchorage would have been the first selected based on Lewis and pushed SF in and solved the entire issue. Regardless, this needs to be fixed. The entire west region got totally screwed.

I didn't see Chandler Reid in the regional results? Is he hurt or just resting for nationals?

Adams State looks pretty tough to beat if you throw him in the mix and Sid the Kid will only get better with another two weeks of training.

BouldeRunner wrote:

The entire west region got totally screwed.

+1

Trying to be as subjective as possible given my alma mater, the West has been strong for a long time. Is there any doubt SF and AAU would have placed outside the top-15?

WWU alum wrote:

BouldeRunner wrote:

The entire west region got totally screwed.

+1

Trying to be as subjective as possible given my alma mater, the West has been strong for a long time. Is there any doubt SF and AAU would have placed inside the top-15?

Err... fixed that. Damn hippie public education.

Interesting results today. Weather wasn't so bad that teams had huge advantages or disadvantages.

On the men's side, the west region team champion finished 9th. The 2nd place team in the west region finished 5th and the 3rd place team from west region finished 21st. South central region had 6 teams in the top 18. Only one team ran terrible, Roger State, who finished 26th. South central put 4 in the top 7 and 5 in the top 14.

Maybe the computers/formula actually got things right?